All About Hugh (About a Boy (DVD))

Member Name: MurphEE

Product:	About a Boy (DVD)
Date:	06/06/02 (208 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Grant and Hoult as well as some laugh out loud moments.

Disadvantages: Poor characterisation in the supporting roles.

Another wet weekend and nothing to do. When will summer ever arrive? A quick scan of the papers and there is very little on at the local cinema. Over the last few visits I have been the one who got to choose what we saw so it was time for Ann to pick. We went to About A Boy (obviously) Chris and Paul Weitz’s (American Pie) version of the Nick Hornby novel.


The move stars Hugh Grant, Toni Collette, Rachel Weiz, Victoria Smurfit and Nicholas Hoult. It is a romantic comedy and is in some ways familiar territory for Grant. What surprised me was the quality of his performance and the spark that existed on screen between Grant and Hoult as the two central characters.


Will Freeman (Grant) is a Londoner who has the luxury of never having had to work. He lives off the royalties of an annoying Christmas song written years before by his father. He is the epitome of selfish cool. Existing in a world of comfort he believes that some men are actually islands and indulges himself at every turn.


Will is very happy with his life but some of his friends feel that he should settle down and set him up with a single mother. Will is shocked but plays along until his selfishness gets the better of him and he decides to dump her, but before he does this she actually dumps him. This leads Will to conclude that single mothers are the ideal romantic partners and he joins a support group, inventing a two-year-old son along the way.


His plan works to an extent and he meets Susie (Smurfit). At one of the groups events he is introduced to Marcus (Hoult) the boy in the title. Marcus is a strange young man and Will does not really take to him but events are destined to bring them even closer together. When dropping Marcus off at his home they discover that Fiona (Collette), Marcus’ mother has attempted suicide.


The trauma leads Marcus to the conclusion that Will would be a good thing for Fiona and he attempts to bring
the two together. Marcus and Will eventually become friends and the two learn valuable lessons from each other along the way.


Having already read the book I was disappointed to hear that Grant was playing the part of Will. I just could not get my head around him in that role. That was before I saw the movie. Grant gives one of his strongest performances to date. I am not a fan but I have found his movies to be enjoyable while he himself tends to make me cringe. Not here, Grant plays the selfish Will with aplomb.


This is a character that most men can identify with. Will only has himself to please and sees every one else as an inconvenience. There is a wonderful line between him and Susie when she questions how the Christmas song could make him enough money to live on. She asks whether he charges carol singers and he replies that it is difficult to catch the little buggers. In this one line and the way it is delivered Grant proves that he has a complete understanding of the character.


Will has had life so easy that he has been forced to invent ways of filling his time. His life is divided into units of time. Each unit is 30 minutes long and he measures every activity in these units. His average day involves watching TV, Countdown, Millionaire and Pet Rescue, buying the odd CD and playing snooker. It is a life that appeals to the male section of the audience. Who among us would not love to wile away the hours in similar fashion?


Dating and romance are at odds with Will’s philosophy. By their very nature they intrude into his ordered and selfish existence. He wants sex without strings and wants to be able to disentangle himself from relationships without remorse. He sees single mothers as the perfect solution. He will be compared to the ex who ahs dumped them and cannot fail in that comparison. He foresees lots of uncomplicated sex and an inbuilt exit strategy.


Marcus lives with his mother and
is an odd child when compared with his peers. He dresses in cardigans and stout shoes and has a penchant for the Carpenters rather than So Solid Crew. He is picked on at school and has had to develop his own coping strategies. Hoult is excellent in this role. He is so believable as Marcus that you can only foresee many more exciting roles for this young man. After Fiona attempts suicide he decides that he needs more people in his life. Two is not enough as if anything happens to either one the other is left stranded. He decides that Will should become the third member of his particular support group.


This leads to the relationship between Will and Marcus and the strongest part of the movie. Grant and Hoult work so well together on screen. You have to think about how badly this could have gone and then marvel at how well they pull it off. Grant is full of arrogance and incredulity at this intrusion into his life while Hoult is fighting for his survival in the only way he knows. He wants Will in his family circle and is willing to put up with his arrogance and hostility to achieve his goal.


Over time the two begin to gel and learn from each other. Will learns that money cannot solve all of life’s problems and Marcus learns about love, life and friendship. There are some excellent comedic moments between the two and it has to be said that the comedy is sharply observed throughout the movie.


The performances from the other characters are good with special mention to Toni Collette who manages to keep the character of Fiona believable by the strength of her performance. The character is that of a lone parent who also happens to be a vegetarian and therefore by movie standards a kooky hippie type. This type of lazy characterisation gets on my nerves but Collette pulls it out of the fire with an excellent performance. It is just a shame that she was not given more to work with.


Rachel Weiz and Victoria Smurfit ar
e there for decoration alone. They perform well but have no real material to work with. This is another shame but it is put into perspective by the solid performances of the two central characters.


London looks fantastic, as you would expect but you have to wonder how the movie will age. There are so many references to popular culture as it exists now that in a few years time we will look at this movie and laugh about how things were in this decade. Overall this is a good movie while never making it into the realm of greatness. It proves that Grant can do more than stumble over his lines and flick at his fringe and in Nicholas Hoult a star of the future may have been unearthed.


Thank you for reading.

© MurphEE 2002

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